ED attaches Rs 14.48 crore property of Yadav Singh
New Delhi, May 9: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached property worth Rs 14.48 crore of former government engineer Yadav Singh as part of its probe in a corruption case against him, an official said on Wednesday.
"We attached assets worth Rs 14.48 crore of Yadav Singh in a disproportionate assets case. The attachment made under Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Total attachments worth Rs 20.38 crore have been made in this case till date," the ED official said.
Singh was engineer-in-chief of the Noida Authority, Greater Noida Authority and Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority in Uttar Pradesh.
Raids conducted by the Income Tax Department in November 2014 revealed that Singh owned huge property disproportionate to his known sources of income.
He was suspended by the Uttar Pradesh government in February 2015 and one-member judicial commission to probe into the multi-crore case set up by the state government.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered three FIRs against Singh, with the most recent one filed on January 17, for allegedly misused his official position for awarding contracts in violation of norms.
The two previous cases were lodged against Singh and others in July 2015 after the Allahabad High Court directed the CBI to probe the case stating that the allegations were most serious and the probe was complex.
The ED is probing money laundering charges against Singh who was arrested in February 2016 and has been chargesheeted in two cases. Singh is presently lodged in judicial custody at Dasna jail in Ghaziabad.
Singh's son Sunny and daughters Garima and Karuna are also accused in the CBI FIR. Singh's family is alleged of utilising his illegal money to form a company.
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Melinda French Gates resigns as Gates Foundation co-chair, 3 years after her divorce from Bill Gates
New York, May 13: Melinda French Gates will step down as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the nonprofit she and her ex-husband Bill Gates founded and built into one of the world's largest philanthropic organisations over the past 20 years.
“This is not a decision I came to lightly,” French Gates posted on the X platform on Monday. “I am immensely proud of the foundation that Bill and I built together and of the extraordinary work it is doing to address inequities around the world.”
She praised the foundation's CEO, Mark Suzman, and the foundation's board of trustees, which was significantly expanded after the couple announced their divorce in May 2021.
“The time is right for me to move forward into the next chapter of my philanthropy,” French Gates wrote in her statement. She organises some of her investments and philanthropic gifts through her organisation, Pivotal Ventures, which is not a nonprofit.
Bill Gates thanked French Gates for her “critical” contributions to the foundations in a statement, saying, “I am sorry to see her leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”
French Gates will receive $12.5 billion as part of her agreement with Gates, which she said would commit to future work focused on women and families.
The Gates Foundation did not immediately return a request for comment about whether those assets would come from the foundation itself. In an emailed statement, the foundation said that Suzman announced the decision to employees on Monday.
“After a difficult few years watching women's rights rolled back in the US and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” Suzman said of French Gates.
Suzman said he knew many had joined the foundation in part because of their admiration for her advocacy, especially around gender equity.
“I know how beloved Melinda is here,” Suzman wrote.
The Gates Foundation holds $75.2 billion in its endowment as of December 2023, and announced in January, it planned to spend $8.6 billion through the course of its work in 2024.
The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce from Pivotal Ventures.
